I certainly don't think that Apple was outright lying in their benchmarks. Those sort of shenanigans are a PR nightmare, and nobody thinks its worth it anymore.
I'm curious which period you're referring to here. I haven't been following Apple presentations in detail for a while, but I remember the iPad 2 announcement was chock-full of flat-out lies. Do you mean that this is something that's changed since then (March 2011)? Or do you mean that it's not worth it for developer-focused presentations vs consumers (who would presumably be more credulous)?
EDIT w/ source: http://fortune.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-distortion-...
Do you have anything concrete to back this up with?
Here's an article that's pretty succinct about the inaccuracy and lies in the iPad 2 announcement: http://fortune.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-distortion-...
All companies tweak the truth to make themselves look good (which company was touting their huge sales numbers when they had barely sold any products to actual customers, just retailers?). Apple aren't alone, they just get the most press.
As you said, this is common practice, and Apple may or may not be one of the more egregious offenders [1], but it doesn't matter. I wasn't saying anything about Apple being shittier than other companies in this regard; I was responding to the parent commenter's claim that a company wouldn't do something like that these days. Now how the fuck is your claim of "Every company does this, leave Apple alone!" not in full support of my point (and arguing against a point that, as near as I can tell, nobody made)?
[1] IMO the lie about the Samsung quote is a level of dishonesty you don't see all that often but my point is that differences in degree like that aren't really relevant
A smug sense of superiority.
I mean, as opposed to users who won't run benchmarks.